


A Learning Experience

by Beleriandings



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Sabriel tries hard to be both a good parent and a good Abhorsen, cuter than those tags make it sound, slight monster/body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 06:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16258868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: The first time Sabriel took Sam into Death with her.[Prompt: "the dead are all around us"]





	A Learning Experience

“There…there we are. It’s alright. You’re alright…” said Sabriel, squeezing Sameth’s small hand as he passed through the border from Life to Death, following right at her heels. She turned – the other hand on her bell-bandolier, through long habit – and gave her son a warm smile. “How do you feel? It can be….disorientating the first time, even for us.”

By which she meant the Abhorsens, of course. Sam paused for just a fraction of a second before nodding emphatically. His eyes were wide and dark, like a frightened rabbit, and her heart ached; he was so young, and she regretted having to begin his training so early. But Ellimere was meant to rule, it was as plain as day, and besides, it was in nearly all of the Clayr’s visions. Besides the ones that didn’t bear thinking about, that was. And so, that meant that Sam must be the next Abhorsen, because there was no other.

And the thing was, they needed another, in these times; she had been thinking it for some time now, the dread in her heart, the weight of responsibility. She would shoulder it, of course she would; but she knew better by now that to trust that she would survive long enough to see her children grow to adulthood. Notions like that were for people who hadn’t died with swords in their chests once already, her return to the living world notwithstanding.

Sabriel turned away from her son for a moment, scanning the vague line of mist that passed for a horizon here in Death. They were still close to the border with Life, but it didn’t do to let down her guard. Especially now that Sam was here with her, and she was trying to teach him best practice. She could feel a few Dead things, somewhere out in front of them. Weak things, here in the First Precinct, but she could feel the crawling presences of them at the back of her mind.

She felt Sam’s hand tremble a little in hers, a small motion that he was obviously trying to still; her heart went out to him. He was trying so hard, she knew. His other hand gripped his small sword, bright with Charter marks, eyes darting around.

“Alright,” said Sabriel briskly, trying to inject a little of the voice she had used on the younger girls as a prefect at Wyverly College; it made her feel better about this, somehow. “Now. Reach out with your death sense, the way we practiced. Can you feel anything around us?”

Sam frowned, brow furrowing in the way that his father’s did when he was thinking. Sam had always looked more like her in colouring and face, but his mannerisms were mostly Touchstone’s; it was probably because Sabriel had always been the more absent of two very scarce parents, she sometimes thought, which was just another source of guilt. She pushed it aside now though, and watched Sam carefully as he considered, reaching out with her own senses too, bracing herself against the sucking chill of the water in a way that was almost second nature now.

“I can feel…” Sam’s voice cracked a little, rising high with badly-suppressed nervousness. “I can feel Dead things! All aroud us…” his brow furrowed deeper, as his head turned to one particular spot; he was running his thumb along the grip of his sword now, and would be fidgeting with it, she knew, if he was not holding her hand in his other.

“Weak Dead spirits, denizens of the First Precinct, yes” she said. “Can you show me where?”

He pointed with his sword, the tip trembling a little. “Over there…?”

She nodded. “Yes.” He was correct; there was a little twitch in her Death Sense, a stitch out of place in the fabric of life and death, just so. Sure enough, there was a small disturbance on the surface of the water, an irregularity in the flow that she knew meant there was something lurking there. Small, but persistent, and its attention now directed towards the two of them. She squeezed Sam’s hand again; he had frozen, looking at the spot himself, clearly trying his hardest not to tremble as he stood his ground with determination.

“Mother” said Sam, “I think-”

But he got no further, his words turning into a yelp of alarm as Sabriel felt something snap at the armour of her leg. It hadn’t pierced her greave, but it had caught her off balance, her gaze having been focussed on Sam and his safety. Taken by surprise, she kicked out sharply, then stabbed down into the water with the point of her sword. The Charter marks burned bright as the metal ate through spirit flesh, stabbing something below the surface; she had been looking in the other direction, and had not seen it approach. She pulled her sword out of the water, in a great arc of drops; skewered on the end was a flailing spirit, a many-legged pale maggot of a thing, segmented like a centipede but with the head of a skeletal hare, black eyes weeping crust as yellow as its teeth, as its jaw stretched too wide, reaching out for Sameth even as the creature writhed, impaled on Sabriel’s sword.

With a dismissive click of the tongue, she threw it as hard as she could into the water, towards the First Gate, and pulled out a bell – Kibeth. This spirit felt weak; she knew that the first few notes of the dance of Kibeth alone would be enough to compel it to walk, to follow the current to its final death.

But as she was about to ring the bell, she heard a cry from behind her, at the very same time as she heard a resounding splash. At once she whirled around back to where Sam was, to see him flinching back, holding his sword at guard. Over him stood a spirit, looming up out of the water; it was shaped like some sort of bloated squid, too many tentacles – pearlescent and dripping with river water – reaching out towards her son, many eyes blinking in a flicker of menacing, solid black.

Sam was staring up at it, his sword raised but still, frozen in momentary shock. The spirit gave a gurgling, tearing scream, and struck downwards at the boy below.

Sabriel had instants to make her decision; the creature was fast, but she was faster. She lunged through the water, pushing Sam to the side in the river to his hands and knees. With a snarl, she brough her sword around in a great arc – fueled by anger, but not for a second allowing it to cloud her judgment. In Death it was too dangerous to allow oneself that indulgence, even for an instant.

Once again her sword connected with spirit flesh, sending out a gout of the foul-smelling ichor that ran in its dead veins. It shrieked, a sound like tearing metal and the cries of the dying, but her bell was still in her hand; half-submerged in the water, and shielding her son with her body, Sabriel rang Kibeth. “Get… _away_ ….from here!” she snarled, through gritted teeth.

The creature twitched and juddered sickeningly as it fought the sound. Sabriel bit her lip; she was concentrating, after all, on two targets. For Sam, too, was up again and walking under the spell of the bell, but in the opposite direction, back towards life, the sound gripping his footsteps.

“M-mother!” he called, looking back over his shoulder with wide eyes, face ashen. “Let me stay and help you!”

“No!” she stabbed her blade deeper into the creature, as it reached out to her; luckily its frontmost set of arms – though triple jointed and flailing – were too short to reach her with its claws while impaled on her sword. “Let go, Sam. I can…do this.”

He still fought her, and she rang Kibeth even louder, pouring her concentration into the contest with the creature. Sam was fighting it too, as she glanced over her shoulder to him; he hadn’t even read the Book of the Dead yet, he didn’t know the fight she was engaged in now, she thought with a pang.

He was so young, and clearly terrified. Maybe she had made a mistake in bringing him here, this soon.

And so, Sabriel made a decision. In an instant, she pulled her sword out from the Dead entity, giving it a sharp kick into the river. Surprised, it lost its balance – there had been only about a fifty-fifty chance that would work, Sabriel thought, but sometimes one had to gamble – and fell with an almighty splash into the water. At the same time, she gave Kibeth one final ring, before stilling the bell in her hand, hoping for the best as she turned back to Sam, and back to the border with life.

Sometimes, she knew, one had to cut and run. She didn’t do it often – she had made it her business not to, these years she had been Abhorsen, to never run from anything if she could stand and fight instead – but here, that was not her greatest concern. She reached Sam, swept up his hand and tugged him back towards life. His protest was stilled as they both burst through the border back into the relative heat of a spring afternoon, in the parkland just outside of Belisaere. The next thing she felt was ice cracking and melting on her face, cold stinging, but vibrant and alive.

She heard a soft sound beside her as Sam shook off the frost that had accumulated on his clothes, collapsing onto his hands and knees. Sabriel was at his side immediately, dropping down beside him and taking him in her arms. He was very still, all his muscles tense and rigid as she hugged him.

“You’re alright” she whispered. “It’s alright. Its gone. We’re back. I’m…sorry, Sam. That was quite…dramatic, for a first time in Death.”

He drew back, face a little ashen, still very quiet and avoiding her eye. “I’m sorry, Mother! I prevented you from doing what you needed to, back there…”

But she was shaking her head, taking his face in his hands. “That thing…it hasn’t seen the last of me, I promise you. But my main priority… Sam, you know that it’s always you, don’t you?”

“…I… I mean…”

“Well. You and your sister, and your father. But Sam, I promise you that when you are training at my side, I will always put your safety first. Do you trust me?”

He was beginning to tremble, she saw with some guilt, but he seemed to force a smile, then. “I trust you, Mother!” he said, and she could tell that that, at least, he meant entirely.

“Good” she said, nodding. “I’m glad.” Now she just had to be worthy of that trust, now and for as long as she was able to guide him on the path to who he had to become. She thought of her own father then, memories coming back of how he had taught her. She had been about Sam’s age then. It was past time, really; she knew she should put more faith in her son, just as her father had put his faith in her. She sighed, and ruffled up his hair a little, as she had when he was a child. “I trust you too, Sameth.”


End file.
